Let’s Digress About Devaluing Human Life

This terrible screenshot appeared on one of my newsfeeds recently. Most people should see it as illogical and manipulative after reading the first sentence. If you don’t see it as illogical and manipulative, fret not. I’ll elaborate for the edification of everyone.

By definition, pregnancy is often a consequence of having sex. That’s just how it works: sexual intercourse oftentimes results with a baby because of science and things. That consequence is a good one. Bringing new life into the world is always something to be celebrated! It may be inconvenient, and both expected and unexpected pregnancies definitely bring inconveniences, but new life is always something to be celebrated.

I should point out that the prochoicelove_ people even posting this in the first place is dirty pool. Seriously. The conflations, assumptions, logical fallacies, and blatant emotional manipulation are rampant throughout this entire text.

Another indication that this is poorly rationalized and aims to provoke a knee-jerk emotional reaction is because it completely lacks references. This is similar to how some people claim that “institutional racism,” “women’s oppression in the United States,” or “rape culture” all exist; they throw out embellished talking points without any references to support their claims. And, as we can see, this post doesn’t have any references of any sort to anything to back up any of the post’s assertions.

Now, for the more problematic things of this screenshot:

Who says mothers should birth and raise their children as punishment for getting pregnant? Show me one person who says that. Show me one person who says that and I’ll tell them just how big of an idiot they are and I’ll list out all the ways they’re wrong. If it happens that frequently then it should be easy to provide concrete examples and instances where it has happened.

From everything I’ve ever read, it’s extraordinarily more dehumanizing to dismember and extinguish the life of a baby inside the womb than it is to begrudgingly birth a child, especially since it’s ridiculously easy to give that child up for adoption. But that could just be my opinion.

Speaking of opinions, the opinion of prochoicelove_ is that it’s more dehumanizing to begrudgingly raise a baby as opposed to dismembering and killing it because it’s the convenient thing to do. Interestingly enough, they’re only capable of having that opinion in the first place because they weren’t dismembered and killed in the womb themselves.

I also don’t think it should be considered punitive to expect the mother birthing the baby to be the one to raise the baby. That’s the generally accepted as the way things work, barring abnormal circumstances: if you have a baby, it’s your responsibility to raise that baby.

But there’s good news! If a mother doesn’t want to raise their own small human, Safe Haven laws are a real thing and absolve the mother of responsibility once they surrender the baby. Really, relinquishing one’s own child because they can’t care for him or her for whatever reason seems to me to be an incredibly loving and selfless thing to do.

According to this article, there are thirty-six couples waiting for every one baby adopted. If abortion wasn’t on the table as an option* and if adoptions were more heavily utilized, this entire chapter in history filled with infanticide would be resolved by babies going to families who want and love them, of which there are plenty.

*There is a valid discussion to be had for abortion in the über rare cases where the life of the mother is in legitimate danger if the pregnancy would progress. However, this post is not about those. This post is about all of the other abortions that happen.